Best inner-ear headphones for Sony NWZ-A828

Chronictank

Chronictank

Chronictank

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Sorry to bug you all again, but i took the plunge and went with the Sony NWZ-A828 opposed to the Cowon D2 iAudio, the first reason being that the iaudio 8gb was such a pain to get at a descent price and i managed to find the sony for £153.98 delivered
Second reason being that i thought about it and i would rather hava mp3 player i can take running etc.. and be better at playing music than a superior video player which weighs more and is bigger.
I didnt go with the samsung YP-P2 in the end because it is a good player, but it was inferior for audio to the sony and inferior to the cowan for video, so somewhat of a halfway house, while the more firmware releases were attractive it got poorer review scores than the other 2.

Hopefully it will arrive before the bank holiday or i will have a 4 day wait, but part 2 of my quest for a mp3-video player is the all important headphones.

Now i know nothing about headphones, but what is the point spending £150 on a mp3 player if you are going to use the crappy packaged headphones and lose most the audio clarity you paid for.

Now i dont like the over the ear headphones which are popular nowdays, and i also do not like standard over you head ones as i dont like the sensation of having my ears squashed, so it leaves inner ear phones.
Now i dont want to go as far as ridiculously priced proffesional headphones, but i do want a descent pair that blocks background noise (iscolation headphones?) and gives a nice sound.

I have narrowed down to this short list according to various review sites:

Sennheiser CX300 - £18
Frequency response: 18Hz - 21kHz
Impedance: 16 Ohm
Sound pressure level(SPL):112 dB (1 kHz, 1 Vrms)
Noise Isolation: ?
Input Sensitivity: ?
Transducer principle: dynamic, open
Jack plug: 3,5 mm stereo (angled)

Has good reviews from a lot of sites, some complaints of the bass being a bit overpowering but i dont mind that all that much


Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studio - £55
Frequency Response: 20 to 13,000
Impedance: 13 ohms
Sound pressure level(SPL): 110 (30 mins) <- lower is better?
Noise Isolation: -26dB
Input Sensitivity: 115dB/mW
Internal Speaker Configuration: Single full range precision balanced armature
Input connector: 1/8" (3.5mm) gold plated

Touted as being the best all-rounder for everyday use, but is it worth the extra ?
 
To be perfectly honest mate, if audio quality is your thing, you have the right player, but to get the best out of it, you really need to spend as much as you can on phones, so out of the two, the UE's will be the far better bet, but the 5's would be a lot better again and the triple.fi's, which I own, would be far better again.

It all comes down to cost in the end, but the more you spend, the more you will get out of the player, providing they're the right phones of course.

Try looking at Head-fi, there is more information than you could possibly need on there and pointed me in the right direction.
 
I have been using the CX300s recently (wanted a fairly cheap pair of inner ears to see if they were 'for me') - they do have A LOT of bass, and it is somewhat overpowering (there really is a lot of bass). Using the eq on my iPod it is possible to reduce the bass so that they sound similar to my previous sennheiser MX500s, but i'm not so sure the sound is as good. Another thing to note is that the cables are very thin (likely to break?) and they produce quite a lot of hiss.

I have no experience of the ultimate ears headphones, but if i was buying now i would consider spending more - i think the extra money goes a long way.
 
Sony EX90 + Cling film mod = win

Have a look on the Head-Fi forum, you will find info on in there, someone said they were the best sounding ear phones under £150
 
the 828 comes with ex85's!

that means (a lot) better than the cx300's, close enough to the ex90's to render them a wasted investment. if you want to seriously improve on the bundled earphones then be prepared to spend the value of the player again on earphones.
 
james.miller said:
the 828 comes with ex85's!

that means (a lot) better than the cx300's, close enough to the ex90's to render them a wasted investment. if you want to seriously improve on the bundled earphones then be prepared to spend the value of the player again on earphones.
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Aren't they just normal (noise reduction) in the ear ones tho, instead of iscolation
 
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Get some custom IEMs like the Livewires or FreQs. About $250 and you get custom moulds so they suit your ears perfectly.

I would avoid *** xcx300s if I were you, not great imo.
 
schizo220168 said:
sorry about the competitor m8,it was the 8gb version ive got.
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Hmi cant find a 828 in xxx for that much anywhere, their direct store doesnt even stock the mp3 player
Are you sure you got the same one :confused:

Edit: aha did you buy the 818? (one without bluetooth)

I guess i will up my budget to about £150 then? headphones are only a one-off purchae anyhow
 
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Chronictank said:
Hmi cant find a 828 in xxx for that much anywhere, their direct store doesnt even stock the mp3 player
Are you sure you got the same one :confused:

Edit: aha did you buy the 818? (one without bluetooth)

I guess i will up my budget to about £150 then? headphones are only a one-off purchae anyhow
Click to expand...
sorry...i got the nw-a808 8gb version.
 
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